Yes. Again.
Rahima got me on a bike. Again. This time we are in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The historic Killing Fields are about 12 kms outside of the city, so instead of taking a tuk-tuk or motorbike, we ambitiously pedaled. Luckily, Cambodia is still flat, so after such a nice biking experience the other day in Angkor Wat, I had few reservations about this journey.
But I learned very quickly that biking in a city is very different than biking on nice, wide, empty country roads. Here, where luckily they at least drive on the right side of the road, they do not pay strict attention to dividing lines, sides of the road, or merging in or out of traffic. It is every man for himself, with the pecking order seemingly being bigger has the right of way...or faster has the right of way. So while I am trying to get the basket on my bike to balance correctly and not fall down so that my knee is hitting it on every rotation of the pedal, Rahima is feeling the adrenaline rush of biking with the possibility of death. The brakes on her bike worked fine, but screeched like the music from the shower scene in Psycho. No joke. She enjoyed that too, as she said it make everyone around her scared and pay attention. Who AM I traveling with?!?!
As for me, I was not enjoying the constant competition for road space with cars, trucks, motorbikes (which whiz in and out of everything stopped or moving at all times), other bikers, vendors with their carts, etc. The other thing was that as you are in the mix of the melee at any time any one of those vehicles can decide to come straight for you. Why? Usually because they realize crossing the road would be a death sentence, so just go against the flow of traffic, which is obviously safer. (read the last line with heavy sarcasm)
The good news is, I made it out there and back with no major or minor injuries. :)
On a much more somber note, the killing fields were intense for me. I took one look at the monument built amongst the mass graves which holds almost 9,000 skulls, many categorized by the age and gender, and just started to cry. Those skulls are under half of the 20,000 people (many children) who were beaten to death (to save bullets) and then thrown into mass graves. I'm glad I skipped S-21, the school in the city that was taken over by the Khmer Rouge and used as a place of torture and death. Never being good at history (and not ever having been one to really like things I am not good at) I am shocked as I learn about things like this as I continue on this trip. I feel like everyone should be as outraged and affected as I am learning about these atrocities, but then I remember how until I was actually here I remained ignorant to them. Guess it is just one more thing I will grapple with as I return home in a few months...trying to continue to find the beauty, tragedy, and comedy in life, and then figure out what to do with it.
where i've been...
Monday, June 8, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
pop quiz
Annette is:
a)sitting on a beach, soaking up the sun
b)eating the best cambodian food of her life and washing it down with an ice-cold margartia
c)stuck in the sweltering heat on the side of the road because the bus broke down
a)sitting on a beach, soaking up the sun
b)eating the best cambodian food of her life and washing it down with an ice-cold margartia
c)stuck in the sweltering heat on the side of the road because the bus broke down
Teaching in my blood
Yup...seems like even here, in the villages of Cambodia, I can find a way to end up teaching a classroom full of 5 to 12 year-olds for an hour. :) How fun!
Yesterday was an activity day. I started off the morning by taking a Cambodian cooking class, which was very interesting and yummy. We went to the local market to get the ingredients. It is funny how local markets don't phase me in the slightest anymore. There was once a time when lumps of meat covered in flies (with the minimal attempt by the vendors to get them off of the meat), baskets of fruits and vegetables, people killing and chopping up fish right there in front of you, etc. had me a bit stunned. These days, I absolutely love the whole market culture. Depending on the country I am in, I recognize maybe half of all the food items that are being sold. The rest fall into one of three categories.
1-meat (or animal byproduct, such as intestines or fishpaste or insects)
2-fruit/vegetable
3-absolute unknown substance
Luckily, the ingredients we bought fell into the first two categories. :)
So we made three Cambodian dishes, amok (very similar to a thai massaman curry) was my favorite. The other one was a lemongrass/chicken soup and finally a really spicy chicken curry. I only put two chillis in that dish, but found out quickly that two chillis is a bit much for me. Those little suckers sure do pack a punch!
Before class in the morning, I met a tuk-tuk driver who is from the countryside just on the outskirts of Battambang who has started an NGO to teach children from the countryside English. He relies heavily on tourist volunteers to come in a teach classes for an hour a day so that the kids can be exposed to many different types of English accents. So he arranged to pick Rahima, me, and Sarah (an Australian woman who took the cooking class with me) up later that afternoon and take us to the school.
No lesson plans, no idea what their level of English was, no idea on the age range, but they just gave us each a classroom of about 30 students (ranging from 5 to 25) and let us go. Rahima and Sarah both had classes that were a bit older, with some formal English and who were die-hard to continue to work out of the book they had. The class I had, in contrast, were a bunch of the cutest little kiddos ever, who had a great capacity to mimic back what I said with almost no comprehension. So, it only took a few minutes before I had them copying me, jumping up and down (lots of verbs and adjectives and emotions) saying things like, I am big (and making themselves as big as they could) followed by I am small (getting as small as they could). It was hilarious. They must have thought I was a trip...and I forgot how much I love that look when students realize a)I can teach them a lot and b)I am borderline insane.
I think what this man is doing is really impressive and ambitious. He is in serious need of more funding (I saw his business plan and for only $12,000 USD a year they could do some amazing things for 100 kids. Currently he is attempting to run it on about $200 USD a year. Yikes!) But more than money, he is extremely dedicated to getting volunteers into the school. So here is the plea...if anyone out there wants to do something extremely rewarding for a week, or a few weeks (or longer) and can commit to teaching in the school, 1 hour a day, I know a guy in Battambang, Cambodia who wants your help. :)
Today we hopped on the back of motorbikes to be taken around through the countryside and to the killing caves of the Khmer Rouge, as well as a few temples in the area. Cambodia really has so much beauty, and such a violent and tragic past. The things that the Khmer Rouge did, just 30 years ago, are so haunting. How people can be so violent and cruel to one another is just beyond me. Tomorrow we are off to Pnohm Penh, the killing fields. Considering I couldn't face the concentration camps, I am not sure how well I will fare, but I'll keep you posted.
Yesterday was an activity day. I started off the morning by taking a Cambodian cooking class, which was very interesting and yummy. We went to the local market to get the ingredients. It is funny how local markets don't phase me in the slightest anymore. There was once a time when lumps of meat covered in flies (with the minimal attempt by the vendors to get them off of the meat), baskets of fruits and vegetables, people killing and chopping up fish right there in front of you, etc. had me a bit stunned. These days, I absolutely love the whole market culture. Depending on the country I am in, I recognize maybe half of all the food items that are being sold. The rest fall into one of three categories.
1-meat (or animal byproduct, such as intestines or fishpaste or insects)
2-fruit/vegetable
3-absolute unknown substance
Luckily, the ingredients we bought fell into the first two categories. :)
So we made three Cambodian dishes, amok (very similar to a thai massaman curry) was my favorite. The other one was a lemongrass/chicken soup and finally a really spicy chicken curry. I only put two chillis in that dish, but found out quickly that two chillis is a bit much for me. Those little suckers sure do pack a punch!
Before class in the morning, I met a tuk-tuk driver who is from the countryside just on the outskirts of Battambang who has started an NGO to teach children from the countryside English. He relies heavily on tourist volunteers to come in a teach classes for an hour a day so that the kids can be exposed to many different types of English accents. So he arranged to pick Rahima, me, and Sarah (an Australian woman who took the cooking class with me) up later that afternoon and take us to the school.
No lesson plans, no idea what their level of English was, no idea on the age range, but they just gave us each a classroom of about 30 students (ranging from 5 to 25) and let us go. Rahima and Sarah both had classes that were a bit older, with some formal English and who were die-hard to continue to work out of the book they had. The class I had, in contrast, were a bunch of the cutest little kiddos ever, who had a great capacity to mimic back what I said with almost no comprehension. So, it only took a few minutes before I had them copying me, jumping up and down (lots of verbs and adjectives and emotions) saying things like, I am big (and making themselves as big as they could) followed by I am small (getting as small as they could). It was hilarious. They must have thought I was a trip...and I forgot how much I love that look when students realize a)I can teach them a lot and b)I am borderline insane.
I think what this man is doing is really impressive and ambitious. He is in serious need of more funding (I saw his business plan and for only $12,000 USD a year they could do some amazing things for 100 kids. Currently he is attempting to run it on about $200 USD a year. Yikes!) But more than money, he is extremely dedicated to getting volunteers into the school. So here is the plea...if anyone out there wants to do something extremely rewarding for a week, or a few weeks (or longer) and can commit to teaching in the school, 1 hour a day, I know a guy in Battambang, Cambodia who wants your help. :)
Today we hopped on the back of motorbikes to be taken around through the countryside and to the killing caves of the Khmer Rouge, as well as a few temples in the area. Cambodia really has so much beauty, and such a violent and tragic past. The things that the Khmer Rouge did, just 30 years ago, are so haunting. How people can be so violent and cruel to one another is just beyond me. Tomorrow we are off to Pnohm Penh, the killing fields. Considering I couldn't face the concentration camps, I am not sure how well I will fare, but I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Angkor Wat
Angkor What? Angkor Wat. For those of you unfamiliar with the incredible temples in Cambodia, just think "Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider" and you'll get an idea. :)
We spent the last two days visiting the immense area of incredible temples in northern Cambodia. They are an interesting combination of being restored and preserved while the jungle silently continues to reclaim them. I wish I had my camera here to post a few pictures of these massive temples with huge trees grasping at the walls and slowly crumbling some of the structures as they grow around them. There are so many temples, and they are spread over quite a large area. The first day we got up at 5am and headed out with a tuk-tuk driver to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, probably the most famous of the temples. Then we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon driving between some of the more famous temples and then getting out and climbing in and around them.
The following day, Rahima coaxed me back onto a bicycle. Thank God, Cambodia is NO Easter Island. Cambodia is FLAT. :) Happy biking for Annette. We did about 35km, but seeing as how it was literally all flat, it made for a great biking day (for me). We got off of the beaten track much more than the previous day and got caught in a few torrential rainstorms. It was really, really fun. I played tic-tac-toe with a few Cambodian kids peddling things outside of some of the temples, and of course, I lost. Tic-tac-toe has never been my strong point.
I am slowly getting used to seeing the fried or roasted insects and larva in huge piles being sold as snacks on the sides of the street. I only wish I could have caught my cockroach and sold it. That sucker could have been a proper meal for someone!
Today we took a bus to Battambang, a little town and supposedly there is some great countryside around this area that we will explore in the next few days. It is a little eerie to keep reading in the tourbooks not to "stray off the beaten path" in certain places due to the high density of land mines still in the area, and to see so many land mine victims as well. Incredible, once again, the things we take for granted back at home. Like walking a few feet off of a major road.
We spent the last two days visiting the immense area of incredible temples in northern Cambodia. They are an interesting combination of being restored and preserved while the jungle silently continues to reclaim them. I wish I had my camera here to post a few pictures of these massive temples with huge trees grasping at the walls and slowly crumbling some of the structures as they grow around them. There are so many temples, and they are spread over quite a large area. The first day we got up at 5am and headed out with a tuk-tuk driver to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, probably the most famous of the temples. Then we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon driving between some of the more famous temples and then getting out and climbing in and around them.
The following day, Rahima coaxed me back onto a bicycle. Thank God, Cambodia is NO Easter Island. Cambodia is FLAT. :) Happy biking for Annette. We did about 35km, but seeing as how it was literally all flat, it made for a great biking day (for me). We got off of the beaten track much more than the previous day and got caught in a few torrential rainstorms. It was really, really fun. I played tic-tac-toe with a few Cambodian kids peddling things outside of some of the temples, and of course, I lost. Tic-tac-toe has never been my strong point.
I am slowly getting used to seeing the fried or roasted insects and larva in huge piles being sold as snacks on the sides of the street. I only wish I could have caught my cockroach and sold it. That sucker could have been a proper meal for someone!
Today we took a bus to Battambang, a little town and supposedly there is some great countryside around this area that we will explore in the next few days. It is a little eerie to keep reading in the tourbooks not to "stray off the beaten path" in certain places due to the high density of land mines still in the area, and to see so many land mine victims as well. Incredible, once again, the things we take for granted back at home. Like walking a few feet off of a major road.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Goodbye Thailand, Hello Cambodia
Yesterday we arrived in Cambodia, after a little over 26 hours of transit. I quickly fell asleep and enjoyed about 14 hours of it...straight. Yummy. ;)
Kevin and David left a few hours after we did, they flew back to Bangkok and then flew home. It was great to see them, and tough to adjust to being a "tourist" for me. It is amazing how much we haven't really been proper tourists for quite some time now, and it was surprisingly hard for me to be surrounded by more vacationers than backpackers. I guess this is where I reflect on who I am and what drives me as a person, right? We had a lot of great laughs and stories from day 1 which we kept reminiscing about for the rest of our time together. Thanks Kev and Dave for coming halfway around the world and spending your vacation time with us. You are the best.
So, upon leaving Ko Samui, Rahima and I jumped on a ferry boat back to the mainland. I had to use the bathroom at one point (a squat toilet of course) and had to grip the sides of the bathroom for support from the rocking boat. Lo and behold, I came out of the bathroom with loads of little, tiny ants running up and down my arms, my shirt, and of course, my pants. Pretty sure I had ants in my pants for a bit there.
Then, a few hours later, when we had reached the mainland and completed our overnight busride to Bangkok, we stopped in to grab something to eat and figure out how to get to Cambodia. We took a taxi to the right bus station and bought our tickets. Luckily the bus we needed left in just ten minutes so we headed to the platform to wait for the bus. While we were waiting, I felt something tickle my leg, just below the knee. I gave my leg a quick shake, thinking nothing of it. A few seconds later, I felt it again. Still not alarmed, and thinking it was the straps that I use to turn the pants into capris, I gave my leg another good shake. Then I looked down. BIG mistake. I looked down in time to watch a TWO INCH COCKROACH run out of the leg of my pants, see daylight and hurridly run towards a patch of dark garbage in a corner. EWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!! Disgusting. I totally freaked out. How long was it in there??? What was it doing? Better not to think about the answers I guess. Ants and now cockroaches? I was ready to fall asleep on the bus and wake up in Cambodia.
So, like I said, we are here now and it is HOT. I have already been told that clothes will probably not fit "big europeans" like me, and when I stepped in some mud/sand mixture after the mini-monsoon this morning the guy at the hotel laughed as I sank in about a half an inch and said, "maybe because you are too big". Wow. Talk about getting a complex! So today is errand day seeking out things like internet, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner. Tomorrow and the next few days I will try my best not to melt completely in this heat as we head to explore Angkor Wat in all of its glory.
Tomorrow marks our 8 month anniversary of being on the road, and I can't believe how quickly it has gone by. Sadly, somehow I misplaced my camera cord when we left Thailand (Dave or Kev, did you pick it up?) so I can't upload any pictures until I find a new one. :(
Just know I am still alive and kicking...ants, cockroaches and all.
Kevin and David left a few hours after we did, they flew back to Bangkok and then flew home. It was great to see them, and tough to adjust to being a "tourist" for me. It is amazing how much we haven't really been proper tourists for quite some time now, and it was surprisingly hard for me to be surrounded by more vacationers than backpackers. I guess this is where I reflect on who I am and what drives me as a person, right? We had a lot of great laughs and stories from day 1 which we kept reminiscing about for the rest of our time together. Thanks Kev and Dave for coming halfway around the world and spending your vacation time with us. You are the best.
So, upon leaving Ko Samui, Rahima and I jumped on a ferry boat back to the mainland. I had to use the bathroom at one point (a squat toilet of course) and had to grip the sides of the bathroom for support from the rocking boat. Lo and behold, I came out of the bathroom with loads of little, tiny ants running up and down my arms, my shirt, and of course, my pants. Pretty sure I had ants in my pants for a bit there.
Then, a few hours later, when we had reached the mainland and completed our overnight busride to Bangkok, we stopped in to grab something to eat and figure out how to get to Cambodia. We took a taxi to the right bus station and bought our tickets. Luckily the bus we needed left in just ten minutes so we headed to the platform to wait for the bus. While we were waiting, I felt something tickle my leg, just below the knee. I gave my leg a quick shake, thinking nothing of it. A few seconds later, I felt it again. Still not alarmed, and thinking it was the straps that I use to turn the pants into capris, I gave my leg another good shake. Then I looked down. BIG mistake. I looked down in time to watch a TWO INCH COCKROACH run out of the leg of my pants, see daylight and hurridly run towards a patch of dark garbage in a corner. EWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!! Disgusting. I totally freaked out. How long was it in there??? What was it doing? Better not to think about the answers I guess. Ants and now cockroaches? I was ready to fall asleep on the bus and wake up in Cambodia.
So, like I said, we are here now and it is HOT. I have already been told that clothes will probably not fit "big europeans" like me, and when I stepped in some mud/sand mixture after the mini-monsoon this morning the guy at the hotel laughed as I sank in about a half an inch and said, "maybe because you are too big". Wow. Talk about getting a complex! So today is errand day seeking out things like internet, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner. Tomorrow and the next few days I will try my best not to melt completely in this heat as we head to explore Angkor Wat in all of its glory.
Tomorrow marks our 8 month anniversary of being on the road, and I can't believe how quickly it has gone by. Sadly, somehow I misplaced my camera cord when we left Thailand (Dave or Kev, did you pick it up?) so I can't upload any pictures until I find a new one. :(
Just know I am still alive and kicking...ants, cockroaches and all.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Thailand
The rundown on Thailand...
it is hot.
it is humid.
there are mosquitoes that love me.
i itch.
we are currently on the island where they filmed the movie "the beach"
(no leonardo dicaprio here)
went diving yesterday...saw a hawksbill turtle. AWESOME.
the beer is good.
the company is very entertaining.
the food is delicious.
the tourists outnumber the locals where we are at least 10 to 1. (insert sad face here...but it is a vacation for Kevin and David, so it is perfect for them)
the internet is ridiculously overpriced. in fact, i could have eated breakfast and a snack for what i am paying to write this riduculously short update. :)
it is hot.
it is humid.
there are mosquitoes that love me.
i itch.
we are currently on the island where they filmed the movie "the beach"
(no leonardo dicaprio here)
went diving yesterday...saw a hawksbill turtle. AWESOME.
the beer is good.
the company is very entertaining.
the food is delicious.
the tourists outnumber the locals where we are at least 10 to 1. (insert sad face here...but it is a vacation for Kevin and David, so it is perfect for them)
the internet is ridiculously overpriced. in fact, i could have eated breakfast and a snack for what i am paying to write this riduculously short update. :)
Sunday, May 17, 2009
addendum
I'm an idiot. Yes, time changed, but now I'm actually 14 hours ahead of you all.
Next time I should philosophize about sleep, not time. And maybe the effects a lack of sleep have on a (usually) intelligent individual who (for obvious reasons of embarassment) will remain nameless.
Next time I should philosophize about sleep, not time. And maybe the effects a lack of sleep have on a (usually) intelligent individual who (for obvious reasons of embarassment) will remain nameless.
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